\n Sudan's fragile transitional government said it foiled an attempted coup early Tuesday involving military officers and civilians linked to the ousted regime of longtime President Omar al-Bashir.\n<\/p>\n
\n Information Minister Hamza Baloul said the coup attempt was thwarted and those behind it \"brought under control\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We assure the Sudanese people that order has been restored and the leaders of attempted coup both military and civilian have been arrested and are being investigated,\" he said in a televised address.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Authorities are pursuing supporters of the defunct regime who participated in the coup attempt.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Earlier, top military and government sources told AFP that the plotters had attempted to take over the state media building but \"failed\" and the officers involved were \"immediately suspended\".\n<\/p>\n
\n State television broadcast patriotic songs as it announced the coup attempt and urged \"the people to confront it\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Senior members of Sudan's ruling council told AFP the coup attempt had been \"thwarted\" and \"the revolution is victorious.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The cabinet announced that \"all those involved in the attempt have been detained\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Traffic appeared to be flowing smoothly in central Khartoum, AFP correspondents reported, including around army headquarters, where protesters staged a months-long sit-in that eventually led to Bashir's overthrow in a palace coup by the army.\n<\/p>\n
\n Security forces did however close the main bridge across the White Nile connecting Khartoum to its twin city Omdurman.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'We will not allow a coup' -\n<\/p>\n
\n There have been previous coup attempts since Bashir's ouster which officials have blamed on Islamist supporters of the former president and members of his now-defunct ruling party.\n<\/p>\n
\n Sudan has had a long history of coups. Bashir, a one-time general himself, came to power on the back of an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989.\n<\/p>\n
\n Since his ouster, the ex-president has been kept in Khartoum's high security Kober prison and is facing trial over the coup which brought him to power.\n<\/p>\n
\n He is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for his prosecution of a deadly war against ethnic minority rebels in Darfur.\n<\/p>\n
\n During a visit to Khartoum last month, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan signed a cooperation deal with the transitional authorities that marked another step towards Bashir facing trial in The Hague.\n<\/p>\n
\n In an address to his troops on Tuesday, powerful paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo said: \"We will not allow a coup to take place.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We want real democratic transition through free and fair elections, not like in the past,\" said the commander, widely known as Hemeti.\n<\/p>\n
\n Under an August 2019 power-sharing deal, Sudan is ruled by a transitional government composed of both civilian and military representatives, and tasked with overseeing a return to full civilian rule.\n<\/p>\n
\n The deal originally provided for the formation of a legislative assembly during a three-year transition, but that period was reset when Sudan signed a peace deal with an alliance of rebel groups last October.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Two years under transition -\n<\/p>\n
\n More than two years on, the country remains plagued by chronic economic problems inherited from the Bashir regime as well as deep divisions among the various factions steering the transition.\n<\/p>\n
\n The promised legislative assembly has yet to materialise.\n<\/p>\n
\n The transitional administration headed by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has vowed to dismantle Bashir's legacy, fix the battered economy and forge peace with rebel groups who fought the Bashir regime.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last year, Sudan signed peace deals with rebel groups from Darfur as well as South Kordofan and Blue Nile states after lengthy negotiations in the South Sudanese capital Juba.\n<\/p>\n
\n Leaders of the former rebel groups were later appointed to Sudan's cabinet and ruling council.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hamdok's government has also undertaken a series of tough economic reforms to qualify for debt relief from the International Monetary Fund.\n<\/p>\n
\n The steps, which included slashing subsidies and a managed float of the Sudanese pound, were seen by many Sudanese as too harsh.\n<\/p>\n
\n Sporadic protests have broken out against the IMF-backed reforms and the rising cost of living, as well as delays in delivering justice to the families of those killed under Bashir.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Monday, demonstrators blocked key roads as well as the country's key trade hub, Port Sudan, to protest the peace deal signed with rebel groups last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sudan's fragile transitional government said it foiled an attempted coup early Tuesday involving military officers and civilians linked to the ousted regime of longtime President Omar al-Bashir. Information Minister Hamza Baloul said the coup attempt was thwarted and those behind it \"brought under control\". \"We assure the Sudanese people that order has been restored and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-82391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n